


a seven nation army couldn't hold me back

by carrieevew



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 13:57:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15026129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrieevew/pseuds/carrieevew
Summary: “Oh, come on!” the man exclaimed, while the rest of the table chuckled. “I spent six years carrying their letters to each other and Clarke wrote every day. 2199 letter, people, how could I not think they were together?!”Clarke hid her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking from laughter. Miller snorted, Murphy openly cackled and Harper threw her head back, laughing. And then it hit Raven.The Pilot.or: after months of knowing each other, Raven finally meets Shaw.





	a seven nation army couldn't hold me back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_most_beautiful_broom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/gifts).



> i've been toying with this idea for a few days now i finally sat down to write it. beware, i'm tired and quite excited about this, so it's barely edited. feel free to come at me to fix any and all mistakes.
> 
> title from [Seven Nation Army](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J2QdDbelmY) by The White Stripes because FIFA knows no mercy.
> 
> also, the way that Raven says Shaw's name was inspired by [an interview that Rowan Atkinson gave on Top Gear a few years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmtYBMHdDLc), which, by the way, is the reason why i can't listen to Bob Morley being introduced anywhere with a straight face any more.
> 
> hope you enjoy!

The wedding was absolutely beautiful.

Not that Raven expected anything else, no event organised by Clarke Griffin could ever be any less than perfect.

Abby's backyard looked like it was taken straight out of a fairy tale – the lights, the flowers, all their loved ones surrounding Bellamy and Clarke as they made their vows. Kane’s voice was getting more shaky with every word he said and when he  pronounced them husband and wife, Raven could've sworn she heard him sniffle a little. She would’ve smirked if she wasn’t too busy wiping a stray tear running down her face.

Raven blinked quickly when the flash Monty's camera blinded her for a second and then smiled at him when he pointed the camera at her 

The guests finally stopped clapping but the newlyweds didn’t let each other go, Bellamy still had his arms wrapped tightly around his wife, his face tucked into her neck and Clarke had her hands clenched into the back of his shirt.

Bellamy must’ve said something to her because all of a sudden, Clarke let out a burst of laughter and she was looking at Bellamy with a confused smile when she moved away from him.

Abby came to her daughter and hugged both her and Bellamy before she reminded them that they had a reception waiting. Bellamy grabbed Clarke’s hand tightly, his thumb rubbing over the wedding band on her finger.

Clarke waved at Raven to come closer to them and when she did, her friend wrapped her right arm over Raven’s shoulders and hugged her close.

“You’re awfully touchy today,” Raven joked with a smirk but there was no bite in her voice. She was too happy for her friends.

“Shut up,” Clarke countered. She pushed her away gently and laughed. She grabbed Raven’s hand and pulled her, and Bellamy with her, leading them to the tables, where the reception was taking place.

…

Raven was coming back to their table when she heard a strangely familiar voice coming from a man she couldn’t quite place. He was sitting in Clarke’s chair, while she was perched on Bellamy’s lap, his left circling her waist, his right hand patting the man on the shoulder. The gears in Raven’s head were turning but his name still escaped her.

“Oh, come on!” the man exclaimed, while the rest of the table chuckled. “I spent six years carrying their letters to each other and Clarke wrote _every day_. 2199 letter, people, how could I _not_ think they were together?!”

Clarke hid her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking from laughter. Miller snorted, Murphy openly cackled and Harper threw her head back, laughing. And then it hit Raven.

 _The Pilot_.

Lieutenant Shaw, from Colonel Diyoza’s outfit. The guy flying the helicopter during her last tour in Afghanistan, whose voice she heard over the radio when she was reassigned to air traffic control after her surgery. The same one with whom she’d been arguing using and because of the code she’d been writing over the last few months. She had joined a private company sometime after getting discharged from the military and she was working on a new drones program with a certain M. Shaw, who served as a consultant. He was supposed to help her with the piloting but he started by trying to hack her instead. She had crushed him, of course, and she was tempted to request some other pilot, one that wouldn’t interfere with her work but they finally reached an understanding when he explained that he was only trying to find out just how good she actually was.

Fast forward about a year and now, they were in this strange place where she was smiling every time she saw a message from him in her inbox and she still had no idea how he even looked like underneath the helmet and the sunglasses he had always been wearing, whenever she saw him over there.

She’d almost forgotten that he’d been the one delivering their mail once a week. That every week, like clockwork, he’d bring in a package containing seven hand-written letters from Clarke to Bellamy and whatever else Clarke decided to send to the rest of them. And then, he’d fly back with Bellamy’s response and a promise to see them again in a week.

Lather, rinse and repeat, for the entire time that Bellamy had spent in the Army.

It was both frustrating and sweet to watch the way he’d light up whenever he opened the first letter because not even once in all those years did either one of them had the guts to admit their feelings for each other. Feelings that were obvious not just to the rest of their unit, but apparently to anyone else who had met them, if Shaw’s words were any indication.

Raven reached the table and dropped to her chair, on Shaw’s right.

“Hello, _Miles_ ,” she greeted him with a smile and watched the absolute confusion colour his features. She raised one eyebrow and smirked at him, waiting for him to figure it out. She saw him take her in, his eyes roving over her face slowly until they dropped to the metal necklace she had around her neck.

“Raven Reyes!” he called out, a grin splitting his face. “So nice to find out there is a face that comes with that brilliant brain,” he said and shifted in his chair to face her, offering his hand for her to shake. “Good to finally actually meet you, feels like this should’ve happened ages ago.”

Raven took his hand and wrapped her fingers tightly around his, shaking twice. They let go of each other soon but she still felt the ghost of the callouses and the warmth of his palm on her skin. Well, that was—new.

…

Some of the guests started to leave around midnight, but most of the newlyweds’ closest friends stayed. The music changed into some slow song that Raven didn’t recognise but it sounded nice, relaxing. She looked to the dance floor where Bellamy and Clarke swayed in place, arms wrapped around each other, completely oblivious to the rest of the world. She smiled at her friends. She was so focused on them, on the fact that they were so close to each other the only way to tell where one stopped and the other started was to look at their contrasting hair, that she didn’t even notice when Shaw came up to her.

Raven greeted him with a slight nod but they stayed silent for a few moments before he took a breath and turned to her, looking slightly uncertain.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked offering her his hand once again and for the second time this evening, Raven took it.

She didn’t say a word to him while he led he to the dancefloor and put them in the proper dancing position. Raven placed her palm on his shoulder, feeling a little tense.

It’s been a while since she’d danced, actually. Quite some time before she went to war and then after the accident, the prosthesis she was wearing made it quite uncomfortable.

But this was nice. The song changed while they moved in a small circle but the tempo remained mostly the same, so they didn’t need to adjust much. And so, after a few more lines, Raven started to relax. And that took her by surprise.

She didn’t have much time for dating, definitely too busy to go out and look for potential partners which meant that the last “relationship” she had was with an engineer at her company. And that was even before Bellamy and Clarke had finally gotten together. The arrangement with Wick came to an end when it turned out they weren’t on the same page after all and Wick started to demand a bigger commitment from her.

Raven told herself that it was for the best. That she was too busy to deal with a guy who couldn’t understand that she didn’t want a relationship with anyone and that it wasn’t just about him and his pride. She told herself that she had more important things to worry about and for the most part, it was true.

But sometimes, when she got home early enough and still had enough energy to think about it, she felt lonely. For all that she loved her friends and was happy that they were able to find loving relationships, it stung sometimes to remember that she was the only one left without a partner.

Over the last few months, though, she had Shaw. After a fashion. With time, their conversations, which started as a series of invectives and ling strings of exclamation marks, shifted focus from the drone program to other subjects. They learnt how to work together quite well, which meant they were able to get the job done quickly and efficiently, and that left them with some wiggle room to get to know each other. One may even say they were becoming friends and if Raven was feeling particularly brave, she could even tentatively admit that maybe one day, they might become something more.

Only that was while Shaw was just… an idea. Some person on the other side of the world that Raven could build up in her mind however she liked. Back then, he wasn’t an actual person standing in front of her, pressing his palm between her shoulder blades, leading her around a dance floor and looking her straight in the eyes.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Shaw asked quietly, breaking the silence and Raven realised that she must’ve seemed distant.

“Sorry,” she said but Shaw just smiled at her.

“That’s okay, I’m not sure what to say to you, either,” he admitted, which made Raven chuckle. It was nice to be reminded how much they’ve grown to understand each other.

“Yeah, this is weird,” Raven said and they both smiled at each other. It was undeniably strange but it was nice, too. Felt good to find out that they could actually interact in person, too.

They moved around the dance floor and finally, they landed close to the newlyweds. Raven turned her head slightly to them, watched as Bellamy kissed Clarke’s forehead and she nuzzled into his neck. In the corner of her eye, Raven noticed that Shaw was watching them as well and he smiled, seeing their friends this happy.

She felt a surge of some unexpected bravery and when Shaw turned his head to look back at her, she leaned in to plant a quick kiss to his lips.

He let out a mock gasp.

“Miss Reyes, such forwardness in front of all those people? As I live and breathe! Are you sure you’re not drunk?”

“Not enough that you’d have to worry about my faculties,” she shot back, waiting for the wave of annoyance, only it.. never came. She was used to men patronising her, starting from her first boyfriend who turned out to be a lying cheat, through her fellow soldiers and then co-workers who liked to remind her that as a disabled person, she was somehow incapable of taking care of herself, ending with Wick who had good intentions, but often made her feel like damaged goods.

She looked at Shaw and expected to feel the same urge to punch something but the glint in his eyes only made her laugh. Who’d have thought she’d welcome someone making fun of her but as it was, it beat being pitied by a mile.

“Shut up,” Raven groaned lightly but then she grinned at him. “My two best friends just got married and sometimes, I didn’t  even think it would ever happen. I’m happy, I’m feeling the love.”

Shaw leaned away from her and looked at her with a cocked eyebrow.

“Are you not the same Raven Reyes – the maid of honour, who but a few hours ago began her speech by saying ‘ _I knew from the moment they met that those two would end up together_ ’? I was lead to believe there was even a betting pool.”

“Oh, of course there was,” Raven nearly exclaimed, then she snorted. “You only saw the six years they spent apart while Bellamy was in the Army but they’ve been dancing around each other for a decade.” Raven sighed. “Of course I thought they would get together, they belong with each other. But at some point, after everything that happened, I couldn’t help but wonder that maybe it won’t be a happy ending.”

Raven let her head hang down, she was looking  at their feet for a quiet moment. Thinking about the last ten years of their lives, how turbulent Bellamy and Clarke’s relationship had been during that time, sometime it almost felt impossible that they would end up in this place. _Married_. But seeing how incredibly happy and content they were with each other, she couldn’t help but believe that it had been worth it.

Raven felt Shaw rub small circles between her shoulder blades with his thumb and she let out a sight. She looked at him with eyebrows raised and tried to muster up the courage to ask him out but he spoke first.

“Would you like to have dinner with me on Friday?”

“Friday? That’s an awfully long time to wait. Aren’t you afraid that I may change my mind in the meantime,” Raven teased but Shaw just grinned at her.

“That would mean you said ‘yes’ in the first place and I’ll take it,” he smirked. “Besides, if that were an option, I’d try to convince you to find a secluded spot right this evening so that you can have your way with me but I happen to know that we’re all bunking in Senator Griffin’s guest rooms tonight and then I have to go back to base and I won’t be back till Friday. So, what do you say? Dinner?”

“Yes, _Miles_ , dinner,” Raven answered. Shaw smiled at her.

“You know, only my mother ever calls me that.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” he shook his head lightly. “You, Raven, can call me whatever the hell you want.”

Shaw took his hand away from her back, stepped away from Raven and twirled her before pulling her back in. Raven grabbed his shoulder tightly while she tried to steady herself on her feet, laughing loudly.

Yeah, maybe it really would be worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! comments and kudos will be welcomed like manna.
> 
> p.s., i'm thinking about maybe writing some Bellarke follow up to this, since i gave myself feels, like i always do. what do you think?
> 
> as always, find me on tumblr @[carrieeve](http://carrieeve.tumblr.com), i'm always happy to yell and/or cry about the show.


End file.
